Other Food Allergies

Nut free schools

Has anyone successfully gotten their school to go nut free? My son will be starting kindergarton at our local public school, August 2007. He is allergic to peanuts. I know there are, or will be, at least 2 other children with either peanut or treenut allergies at the school. We are looking to ask the school to go nut free. Any ideas would be great!

Our school (not public) went peanut-free five years ago. The principal made the decision to go peanut-free without being asked. I think one reason this has been so successful was that the principal took full responsibility for her decision and never put the peanut-allergic children or their families in the middle. She handled any conflicts, complaints, etc. Now it is just accepted that our school is peanut-free.

I think it is reasonable for an elementary school where one or more students have contact allergies to peanuts to be peanut-free. I don't think it is reasonable to make the school tree nut-free where there are no such issues.

Hi, My son is in the same situation. He is starting Kindergarten in Sept 2007 and have several extreme allergies and is airborne and contact to peanut/nuts. He is also very asthmatic. We are having the same struggle. The privvate schools in Mass that are peanut and nut free are in the $20K+ range and the publics are not nut free unless you litigate and struggle. We have started doing some things if you would like some help. I would be happy to share information. Please feel free to email me too. This is a really hard issue and I so understand. We have had many meetings with schools, spokens to state people and have gone further, any help I can be. We are still working. It takes alot of work from the allergist too. I can give you a list of all the things I have done so far too. Quote:Originally posted by iansmommy:
[b]Has anyone successfully gotten their school to go nut free? My son will be starting kindergarton at our local public school, August 2007. He is allergic to peanuts. I know there are, or will be, at least 2 other children with either peanut or treenut allergies at the school. We are looking to ask the school to go nut free. Any ideas would be great!

Getting a public school to go nut free will definitely be a challenge. If you are serious about it, you will need to do a lot of research on public schools that have gone peanut free and present it to the school board. At our school, there are children with juvenile diabetes and apparently they must eat peanut butter. Therefore, we have almost no chance of becoming peanut free. good luck.

BS312 - are they tree-nut free as well? Where is your school located? Do you find that the resistance among parents has diminished . . . and do you feel that there is true compliance with the school's policy? Thanks.

Definately in Mass there has been much resitance with parents in the public schools. But there are a handful of private schools that are peanut/nut free envirmonments completely not nut products at all. I have not felt resisitance at all in speaking to these schools or to any of the parents at these private schools. Its been much different in the public. We have two areas in Mass that have gone NUT FREE for the whole school and I know it was not easy on them at all. THe rest has been forced by parents with children like ours that have pressed or taken legal action and its not district wide, but maybe a specific school. I am in the process since he is starting next year and he is beyond severe, he will be somewhere nut free, and has too many other issues to deal with. Whether this school goes nut free or takes other measures to help us is another issue. I must say I have found great complaiance at most of the private schools.
NUT FREE SCHOOLS IN MASS:
Tobin School in Natick MA
Park School in Brookline, MA
Cambridge Friend School in Cambridge, MA
Wakefield Public Schools in MA
Alcott School in Concord, MA
Peanut Free
Atrium School in Watertown, MA Quote:Originally posted by Yonit:
[b]BS312 - are they tree-nut free as well? Where is your school located? Do you find that the resistance among parents has diminished . . . and do you feel that there is true compliance with the school's policy? Thanks.[/b]

Quote:Originally posted by PA&TNA allergy mom:
[b]Does anyone know of peanut free schools in Vermont or Ct? We are considering a move and would love some info from those 2 places.

[/b]
In addition to searching in the Schools Forum you may also want to search in Media. This is one article I found there that might help
[url="http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum8/HTML/001622.html."]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum8/HTML/001622.html.[/url]

You might also want to try [url="http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org,"]www.kidswithfoodallergies.org,[/url] there is a log on a peanut free school list and I searched it for you and Tolland CT was listed, as one of the ones people had mentioned, but I didn't find anything on their website. They are also a great resource.
Quote:Originally posted by PA&TNA allergy mom:
[b]Does anyone know of peanut free schools in Vermont or Ct? We are considering a move and would love some info from those 2 places.

Our peanut-free parochial school is in Maryland. We are not tree nut-free. DD has presumably life-threatening tree nut allergies (high CAP-RAST, never exposed) and she has never had a problem with tree nuts at school.

A few parents complained about the policy initially. Our principal would handle any complaints and I might not be aware if there have been any recently. Compliance is extremely high. All kids, teachers and staff are aware and if anything containing peanut is mistakenly brought to school it is sent back home with a note. Notices asking for baked goods for school functions routinely state that items must be peanut-free. I believe that most of the PA kids (but not my DD) eat cafeteria food and food brought by other parents for parties etc. There have been no food allergic reactions in the 4 1/2 years we've been peanut-free.